In the NICK of time

Yesterday, I sat to ponder upon all the nick-names that i have been given since my chidhood. And here is the evolution of my name into something unexpected at the end!


First nick name: Vicky - Its quite a normal and common spin-off from Vikram and extremely widepread. My mom was the one who started off with this and so everybody in the family started calling me 'Vicky'..But in later years, as I kept outgrowing the image of a 'Vicky', it was the same parents who felt that it sounded more like a dog's name or the name of a tamil movie villain! So they started correcting everybody around, spreading the rumour that I was getting offended with the name 'Vicky' and that I demanded to be called 'Vikram' henceforth! But in reality, it felt strange when near and dear ones started calling me by my real name, after i had gotten accustomed to Vicky for a loooong time.

Second nickname:Vicks - Quite obviously from the popular 'kich-kich' candy.

Third nickname: Vikram.H - Since my class had a total of 3 Vikrams, people started referring to us along with our nicknames. Thus, I became associated with my inital more than my maiden name.

Fourth nickname: H - Slowly, people started getting more comfortable with just calling me by my nickname. Thus, I became unique with everybody remembering me by just one alphabet! The H became as synonymous to me as the middle finger was to the holy word!

Fifth nickname: Hay-ch - Now, I had a brilliant English teacher whose english aptitude was extremely high. She was a permanent member of the British Council's teaching group. She started correcting people and telling them that the actual pronunciation of 'H' was indeed 'hay-ch'...So there it stood, as the butt of jokes. I came to be mocked as 'H', not because it had any double meaning but simply because people found the new pronounction to be very funny!

Sixth nickname: Ai-ch - This very 'hay-ch' spread around as badly as messages do in the game Chinese whispers. The pronounciation got so distorted in everyday speech that people started calling me 'Ai-ch'

Seventh and final nickname: Now this was precisely the same time when awareness about a killer virus was causing panic waves all over the world. The unfortunate part was that its name sounded quite similar to my own 'Aich', which led people to call me.....'AIDS Vikram'. :(...So, that I was for a long time to come. A man who was a killer disease!

Apart from my sad nickname of Aids, I found out the meaning of my real name too. 'Vikram' means a 'Glorious king'!! :)

P.S. A sir in college used to pronounce my name as 'Viggirum'. And another childhood school aaya used to call me 'Vikrawwwwwwn'! :)